Now I have to confess that, in order to try this out I had to use Chat GPT, and I asked it to draw comic strips. I realise that is precisely the thing all of us in the business are fighting against. However what I have demonstrated, I hope, is how badly AI does comic drawing, and how hopefully we can continue to stand out in our battle against it, as original comic creators. Above is a page drawn by Chat GPT. Below is the script I gave it to work from...
I hadn't given it much to work with, but its end result is very much not what I was looking for. And I'm delighted to say it's not as good as I can do myself. So there's something. You see I have this character, called Sinnerhound, a highway robber, who I invented the best part of forty years ago. She appeared in a five page strip in a comic I produced called Bloody Hell back in 1992, and she was then in a self-published one off comic sometime around 2008. And what I remembered is that I had an unused script of hers, from way back in 1989, when I put her into a Role Playing Game.
Inspired by Dice Man, a comic from the mid 80s, I'd done a couple of these multiple-choice RPG strips, the most memorable being a satirical page in Fantasy Advertiser. The Sinnerhound RPG was in a dummy comic I produced called The Picture Story Paper, my brilliant pitch for kids comic that I thought would rock the market in the 1990s. Nobody agreed with me and nothing came of it. But a script for a Sinnerhound RPG script, laid out in biro by me, still existed and wasn't half bad. So I thought I'd use it as an experiment to see if Chat GPT could draw a comic.
I wanted ChatGPT to emulate my style. So I showed it this, a spread from the 2008 self-published Sinnerhound comic, and asked it to draw my script, from my biro layout, in my style. Here first is the 2008 strip by me...
Now here is the first page of script I asked it to draw in that style, followed by ChatGPT's attempt...
Given that I'd not told it any character descriptions for the other person in this scene, it's understandable that it's made something up. And Sinnerhound's mask looks like an indistinct scribble in my script, so what it draws is forgiveable. It mistakes words, for example "That's Highway-Woman!" becomes "That's Highwayman!" rather defeating the point of the line. But otherwise I think this is passable. I then asked it for the next page of the strip. Here is my script followed by ChatGpt's drawing...
At this point it becomes clear that, without character descriptions, the AI can only make characters up, and has no idea that the person featured in the previous page is supposed to be the same character here. It once again mistakes words - "sirrah" becoming "stream" - and once again that mask is an oddity. But if I'd asked for things more clearly, maybe I'd have got them. So I give the machine clearer instructions, that they are inside a 19th century stage coach, and that the man is a city gent. Here's what I get...
We now have a top hatted character, in an American styled stagecoach, but that style of drawing is stopping resembling mine, if it ever did, and starting to look distinctly like the AI cartoon style we've all seen on a hundred posters and adverts drawn by ChatGPT. Also panel 2 has gone from being a fair recreation of my original visual - Sinnerhound snatches a flintlock from the guy's hand - to being a virtual repeat of panel 1, with no snatching happening. And sirrah is steam again.
I asked it to have another stab at the previous page and got this...
No, this is very much not what we wanted. It's taken the words from the original Page 5, including the "Highwayman" that's supposed to be a "Highwaywoman" but has given us pictures from the other page, none of which match up to the story they're telling, and more and more start looking in someone else's style, not mine.
What would happen if I asked it for an earlier page from the script? This is Page 4 where Sinnerhound is outside the coach and robs the driver...
Well no this isn't working at all. ChatGPT is just drawing variations of the scene inside the coach and fitting my words on the top. And it can't tell which voice bubble is supposed to point to which person.
After this I asked it to draw the picture you see at the top of the page, the splash image, which it makes a fair stab at, but can't resist putting the figure inside the coach, which shouldn't be any part of it. At which point I thought let's go back to square one. Literally square one, the very first panel of the strip. And to avoid confusion I'd remind it of my art style, tell it to avoid all greys and shading, and just draw what I'd drawn, but in my finished style. Here's my original script panel followed by ChatGPT's attempt...
No. I designed that picture from a certain angle, in close up, to convey a certain mood and action. Redrawing it to make it basic, and in clothes my character would never wear is, I guess, a mistake a human could also make, given too little information, but still something that's not got us where we wanted to be.
If you can't draw at all, this AI system could turn your script into something that could be read. But you'll need to give it far more detailed instructions that I have. And for someone who actually enjoys the drawing part, as I do, it's nothing short of frustrating. Chat GPT has its own ideas, and they're not what I wanted.
Thus ended the experiment in asking ChatGPT to draw a strip from my script. I shall stick to doing it by hand, thanks.
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